iOS Devices Dominate Mobile Monetization

Ever wondered which mobile operating system is the most effective for advertisers? Opera Software, the makers of the Opera browser, published its first study providing information about mobile monetization and its current status. Turns out, according to this study, that Apple’s iOS devices have the fastest return on investment of all the mobile operating systems.

As other studies about mobile advertising have shown, mobile marketing is just making its first steps right now. Google makes more money from Apple than it does from its ads on Android. With more than 50% of its users on mobile Facebook and ads being one of its key sources of revenue, Google has to find ways to monetize these users.

Opera’s State of Mobile Advertising report reflects an up-to-date picture of mobile monetization. The company reported that in the second quarter of 2012, iOS devices averaged an eCPM of $2.85 (average cost per mille—the standard measure of effectiveness of an ad or campaign found by calculating ad impressions vs. click-throughs). Google’s Android mobile operating system came in second with an average of $2.10 eCPM. When considering that there are more than 500 million Android devices out there and Google sells about 800,000 Android devices per day, this number is kind of disappointing. To put it into perspective, according to Apple’s official June 11 WWDC keynote report, there are 365 million iOS devices spread across the globe.

Other mobile device makers like RIM and Symbian, fell far behind with BlackBerry averaging $0.64 eCPM and Symbian $0.59 eCPM. Interestingly however, the Windows Phone that cost AT&T and Microsoft a combined $500 million to promote has, averaged $0.20 eCPM. A clear reflection of the platform’s current status in the smartphone market.

These numbers, however, aren’t overly surprising. According to a Nielsen report, iOS and Android account for about 90% of the US smartphone market. While on a global scale the two platforms own a combined 83% of the market. An interesting development of Opera’s recent study, is that devices with larger touch screens performed better than their smaller counterparts. The iPad being the absolute leader, with an average $3.96 eCPM, accounting for 14.26% of revenue and 6.86% of traffic.

Opera’s mobile monetization report is based on data gathered from 9,000 global customers with more than 35 billion ad impressions per month, driving a combined total of more than $240 million in revenue for mobile advertisers last year. [Via AppleInsider]